


Marks on the Path

by Sp00py



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Gen, Mild torture, Torture, concussion, everyone is sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26804704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sp00py/pseuds/Sp00py
Summary: There was no truth serum conveniently in Varian's bag. Cassandra has to get what she wants the hard way.
Relationships: Cassandra & Varian (Disney: Tangled)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 87





	Marks on the Path

**Author's Note:**

> I've not actually seen like... a full episode of this series. But I heard the song "Nothing Left to Lose" and really enjoyed the dynamic between a teenager who sounds like a grown-ass man and tall, dark and vengeful. So a quick wiki skim and a few more scenes on Youtube later, here we are.

Varian’s cold. That’s the first thing he notices. Then, his head hurts. His wrists hurt. His neck hurts from sitting awkwardly drooped against a broken support. That, at least, he can correct with some wriggling.

It takes him a little longer to notice Cassandra is staring at him. The fight -- his lab (his poor lab!). The incantations rattling around in his head. Oh, that was a lot to take in alongside a probable concussion. No wonder his head is pounding.

“Varian,” Cassandra says.

“Cassandra. You look…. Nice. How’s life been treating you?”

“Poorly. The incantations. Now.”

Varian sighs. Straight to the point. He had been hoping to talk until the other caught up. If they even know where he is. He could still stall, though. “No.”

Cassandra steps over, and Varian has to crane his head back to keep eye-contact. Her eyes are such a pale, luminous blue. It’s like looking at an alien creature, not the woman he knew. She crouches with a sudden, unexpected speed, and he flinches reflexively.

Her fingers wrench Varian’s gaze back to her. “This will be so much easier if you just  _ tell _ me.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t. Rapunzel --”

A sharp crack. Varian’s ears ring, and it takes him a second to realize Cassandra has jumped back like he’d burned her, her hand clenched close to the moonstone. His face stings.

“Did you hit me?” he asks stupidly, having trouble believing it. Cassandra stares like she can’t believe she had, either.

The startled look in her eyes vanishes under a glare. “Don’t talk about her. Don’t -- Don’t be someone  _ else _ choosing her.”

Silence falls between them, Cassandra’s gaze a little off-center. It unnerves Varian, how she won’t look at him. 

“I can’t do that,” she says quietly. Now she’s talking to something that’s not there. That actually does a lot more than unnerve him, if Cassandra is battling specters in her own mind. Varian knows how convincing one’s own mind can be, against everything your heart tells you is right. “He hasn’t -- I do want this. I deserve it, I know.”

“Cass?” he tries, forcing calmness and acceptance in his voice. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Her attention snaps back to him. “Tell me what the incantation is.”

“No,” Varian says, straightening as much as he can tied up like this. “And it doesn’t matter what you say or do, I won’t change my answer. You know this is wrong.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Varian mutters.

Cassandra curls her fingers into his shirt and yanks him up, earning a hiss as Varian’s shoulders protest the pull against his bindings. “I don’t want to hurt you  _ more _ .”

Varian purses his lips tightly closed and forces himself to breathe through his nose, eyes locked onto Cassandra’s. He hopes she can’t feel him trembling, how easily he’s afraid he’ll break despite his words.

She drops him again and turns away. “You’re making this more difficult than it has to be!”

“ _ Please _ , Cass. This doesn’t have to be a thing at all. Just let me go. Talk to R-- talk to people. Let us help you. You’re not alone.”

Cassandra’s fists clench, and she mutters words Varian can’t make out. She’s not looking at him, and, he thinks, she’s not talking to him, either. It’s strange, watching Cassandra pull farther and farther away, without actually moving at all. Varian had been confident that she wouldn’t actually hurt him (aside from knocking him out, and backhanding him, and straining his shoulders… but those were  _ small _ ). Now, he’s not so sure. He lifts his eyes to the swollen moon high above their heads, praying against all his awful luck that Rapunzel and the others find them soon.

Cassandra moves, and Varian finds himself facing down the obsidian length of her blade. Once she has his attention, the blade’s tip traces down his cheek, the line of his neck, to press threateningly against his shoulder. He rips his eyes away from the sword to look up at her.

“Tell me.”

Varian swallows but says nothing.

“Don’t… please don’t make me do this, Varian.” Cassandra’s voice struggles to be audible, thick and broken.

“Then  _ don’t _ \--” Varian’s words cut off with a cry as she leans into the blade, her head turned away as though she could pretend she’s not doing this. It’s not deep, but the puncture hurts, and Varian’s breath catches. Cassandra pulls back. Though the pain immediately ebbs, it doesn’t fade. It just changes to a throbbing, hot ache radiating down his arm and across his chest. His shirt gets sticky from welling blood.  _ Don’t faint, don’t look, don’t faint. _

Cassandra waits. Varian grits his teeth and stares very, very intently at her black shoes.

The blade drags across his cheek as though she’s tracing a constellation from freckle to freckle. It’s dangerously close to his eye, pressing hard enough to split skin this time. He stops breathing, stops any and all movement. Even like this, Varian trusts in Cassandra’s steady hand to not blind him (not unless she wants to, his traitorous mind provides). She doesn’t want to hurt him. He hadn’t wanted to hurt people, either, until he did. It was terrifyingly easy to cross that line.

Blood drips down his face, and, when she pulls the sword away, he can see a bright red stain on the tip. Varian’s breath comes hard, struggling through his constricted throat. His vision is blurring at the edges. She won’t hurt him if he’s unconscious, right? That’s… that’s a way to buy time --

Varian jerks awake with a yelp as lukewarm water splashes across his face. Once he realizes nothing has changed, that he's still in danger, he squints up. Not at Cassandra, but at the moon. It looks like it hasn’t moved at all.

Fingers dip down and push wet hair out of Varian’s face, tucking them caringly behind his ear. Varian tries not to flinch. Cass sets the water skin aside, casually enough that one could be mistaken thinking they're having the world's most pleasant of conversations.

“Ready to talk?”

“You  _ stabbed me _ ,” Varian says, voice pitching embarrassingly high in shock. His face stings. His shoulder aches.

Cassandra kneels and presses her thumb hard against the wound on his shoulder. She sheathed her sword at some point after he'd passed out, but apparently she could hurt him easily enough without it. “I’ll do it again, if you don’t give me the incantation.”

Varian writhes, boots scuffing furrows in the dirt, as she increases the pressure. Her other hand digs into his uninjured shoulder, bruisingly hard, forcing him still.

“You’re hurting me!”

“You’re making me hurt you!” she yells with a rough shake.

“No, I’m not!” Varian yells right back. His eyes sting, and his throat is tight again. He doesn’t think he can say anything else without crying. Cassandra is hurting him, and blaming him, and isn’t letting up. Somehow, the betrayal hurts more than the wounds. They were friends. Varian had thought so, at least. “This… this is all you,” he chokes out, tears tracing hot, salty trails that burn the cuts on his face.

Cassandra slams him against the ruin he’s tied to hard enough to make his head bounce and ears ring, and steps away. Varian blinks away the momentary dizziness and accompanying nausea. Concussion. That’s a sign of a concussion, he thinks vaguely. He wishes Cass would stop hitting him on the head. It’s the least of his worries, right now, though.

She’s talking again. Not to him. Arguing, though with only half the conversation and none of the context, Varian has no clue about what. Hopefully not how to handle him. He swallows down the urge to puke and risks a glance toward her.

“Who are you talking to?”

Cassandra jerks like she’d forgotten he was there, then pulls her sword once more from its scabbard with a cascading clink of stone shifting. “None of your business,” she says, returning to him, and Varian immediately regrets drawing attention to himself.

They stare at each other. Varian refuses to look at the sword.

Cassandra sighs. “Still won’t talk?” she asks with resignation.

He gives the slightest shake of his head.

The sword swings back around with a faint whistle as it slashes through the air. A line of fire follows, from shoulder to side, ending just above the bottom of his ribcage. Still shallow, but the sword is razor sharp, and his vest and shirt part with an ease that makes Varian worry how easily Cassandra could cut deeper. Varian yelps at the shock, initially, then whines at the blossoming agony. Another cut, down his arm. More movement, and Varian cringes away before he realizes Cassandra’s pulled the sword back.

Her grip trembles, making moonlight flicker and flash along the shining blade, and her chest heaves as though these simple cuts were a herculean effort. This isn’t the stance of a seasoned torturer. This is someone desperate, and in pain, and lashing out. Varian’s heart hurts.

“Tell me,” she orders, and she does well to hide any nerves. Varian wishes he knew what her hallucinations are telling her, how they’re convincing her to go through with this. He wishes he knew how he can convince her to stop without betraying the others.

“Why are you doing this, Cass?”

The sword presses cold underneath his chin, forcing Varian to look up through watery eyes. Normally, he’d be embarrassed by how much crying he’s doing, but given the circumstances, Varian's willing to give himself a pass.

“No more words, unless they’re the incantation.”

“I can’t --” He shrieks as she jabs, quick as a needle into fabric, into his arm.

As though responding to something outside of him (he doesn’t know why her hallucinations hate him so much), Cassandra stabs again, hitting breastbone this time and sending a jolt of pain through Varian’s teeth.

“I didn’t even say --”

She drags the blade down, her blade’s path followed by Varian’s cries, lifting only before hitting the gap under his sternum and sinking too deep. Then, finally, Cassandra stops.

Varian slumps against his bindings. The once-cool stone warmed by his back offers no soothing comfort. He doesn’t know how to stall her anymore, at least not in ways that involve far more pain than he can tolerate.

He struggles through the ringing agony, through the blood he refuses to look at but can feel running along his skin and into his clothes, through the comfort of darkness, to look up at Cass, as though seeing what she’s done to him might make her stop before she goes too far.

She’s crying. Silently, but Varian can make out the tracks on her cheeks, wet in the moonlight. Somehow, that scares him more than what she’s done already. That she can hate this, that she can cry while doing it and  _ still _ be doing it, terrifies him. Her own guilt or regret won’t make her stop. Nothing he can do will, either.

Cassandra brings the blade to flesh again. At the first nerve-searing touch, Varian blurts out, “Crescent high above!”

It stills. She waits.

“C-Crescent high above, evolving as you go --” the blade pulls back, but lingers at his throat. His voice breaks and stutters. “Raise -- Raise what lies beneath, and let the darkness grow…”

Cassandra sheaths her sword and rushes to write down the full incantation as Varian stumbles through it. He wishes he could wipe away the tears tickling their way down his face, stinging the cuts as they drip from his chin. But he manages to finish. She doesn’t threaten him anymore.

The darkness, this time, is both welcome and undisturbed.

* * *

_ Use the sun to see the sun _ .

This is the first thought Varian has that he remembers upon awakening, and he doesn’t know what it means. It has the taste of dreams and visions, but sounds like gibberish, as dreams and visions often do, which is why he doesn't hold much stock in them.

His mouth is all gummy from sleeping with it open, and the bouncing movement of Cassandra carrying him makes his head swim and scabbed over cuts sting. He glances around, trying to orient himself. Stairs with no bannisters spiral down, down, down into darkness. Varian swallows. He’s not afraid of heights, but vertigo has dug its claws into his ears and thrown his balance out the window. Which is dizzyingly high up.

“Cass?” he mutters, twisting a little. His hands are bound in the black rocks. The stairs are black rocks. The walls, the world. “Guess you didn’t have any trouble with the incantation, huh?”

“No,” she says shortly as the ground levels out, and Varian is chucked without ceremony to the icy, smooth floor. With a gesture, his bonds crumble. “The stones recognize their master.”

“Great -- great -- uh, what’s your plan now?” Varian asks, taking in the vast, empty room as he idly presses his gloved hand to the largest of cuts, hoping pressure will ease the pain. He can see sunlight through openings in the stone.  _ I’m sorry, Rapunzel _ , he thinks, seeing those golden bars of light across the black of the floor.

Cassandra is staring at him as he massages his wounds, and Varian lets his hand drop awkwardly to his lap once he notices.

“To take what is mine.”

“And that is……?”

“Recognition. Revenge. Rapunzel took what belonged to me, and I’m  _ tired _ of standing in her shadow,” Cassandra spits, spikes rising like her voice all around them.

Varian scrambles to the side as one slashes dangerously close to him, and he holds his hands up peaceably. He opens his mouth to speak, but Cassandra cuts him off with a sharp gesture. Varian shrinks away. Cassandra pulls her hand quickly back into a fist against her chest.

She looks like she wants to apologize, but instead plows on. “You know how that is, don’t you? After what she did to you and your father?”

“I know it hurts,” Varian begins slowly, climbing to his feet, every movement projected and careful. “And it feels good to lash out. I thought I was angry at Rapunzel, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t her fault. It’s still not her fault.”

“How can you say that?”

“I couldn’t deal with being angry at myself, Cass.” He reaches for her as she turns away, catching her wrist. “I was scared and alone.”  _ You’re _ scared and alone, he doesn’t say. His body aches from what she’s done to him. Isolation is the worst for one's mind and morals. “I did things I regret, terrible things, but she forgave me.  _ You _ forgave me. It’s not too late for you.”

Cassandra whirls and knocks him back to the ground. Before Varian can climb to his feet again, her hands raise like claws, and the stone replies in kind. Fingers curl around him, clutching tighter and tighter, until Varian is curled up with almost no room to move. He presses his face against a gap, one arm slipping free to reach desperately for Cassandra.

“Cass! Please --”

She looks at his hand like it might hurt her, and swats it away. “You’ll stay there until this is done,” Cassandra says. “And just in case you think of escaping…”

The cage glides away, and suddenly there’s open air beneath Varian, and the cage continues extending on a slender, fragile-looking black arm of stone. Varian grips the fingers hard enough that his own fingers ache. He steadfastly refuses to look down at the vast gulf between him and the ground. The air is thin and whistling, pulling at his hair, making his eyes water.

Cassandra walks away from the opening, disappearing into shadows.

Varian is alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Might be a second chapter, might not. Gonna mark it as complete for now.


End file.
